


Night Shift

by labhazard



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Meet-Cute, duck is tired and bad at conversation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-24
Updated: 2019-11-24
Packaged: 2021-03-03 01:40:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 951
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21549328
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/labhazard/pseuds/labhazard
Summary: Duck has an encounter. It goes . . . pret-ty well, all things considered
Relationships: Indrid Cold/Duck Newton
Comments: 9
Kudos: 92





	Night Shift

“So sorry, Ranger Newton. Landings are getting clumsy with age, I’m afraid.”

Duck’s first thought was that a tree had fallen on him. It happened from time to time in the park, especially after a rough run of storms like they’d just been through, wind and loose soil and all that, but . . . trees didn’t apologize, to the best of Duck’s memory.

He scrambled for his flashlight, flung to the side of the trail when he’d been bowled over, and was met with two round, reflective,  _ red _ eyes peering down at him. He startled at his own reflection, bags under wide eyes and hair mussed under his hat--he’d been on the late-early shift for too many days in a row, but Juno’s dog was sick, and damn if he didn’t owe her enough favors, whatever she said.

“Sorry, Ranger. I can’t really afford you getting a good look at me, you understand. Now, I’ll be on my way?” The voice--had to be coming from behind those eyes, somewhere--said it like a question, weirdly, with a tip of its head.

The person in front of him, Duck registered, as his eyes adjusted to the dark, was . . . fluffy. Feathery? Feathery and big, bent over at what didn’t seem quite right to call the waist, to meet Duck’s eyes. It had a polite, gentle voice, one that Duck might have been inclined to listen to more often if it belonged to, say, a radio host and not a  _ big ass cryptid _ in his woods.

Duck raised his hands in a gesture of peace, abandoning his quest for the flashlight, and slowly got to his feet, never breaking eye contact with the red eyes as the creature drew itself up in tandem.

“Wait, wait.” Duck’s new friend seemed reluctant to actually  _ go _ anywhere, despite its offer, and Duck wasn’t about to let him go without some late night, suspension-of-belief questioning. “Are you fuckin’  _ bigfoot? _ ”

“What?” The creature’s voice pitched higher in surprise, before letting out a rough chuckle. “No, no, I’m the  _ mothman _ .” Its figure got alarmingly larger, suddenly, extending massive, undeniably moth-adjacent wings from its sides in an explanatory flap.

“Ah,” managed Duck, faintly. He took a step back on instinct. “Well, I’m, uh, Duck, it’s a nickname. Are you, sorry, are you going to eat me or something? I don’t have a lot of experience with, um. Moth-people.”

“Not unless you want me to.” The mothman replied, without missing a beat. His voice was a weird mix now, amusement and reassurance and . . .  _ interest _ ? Sorry, was mothman  _ flirting  _ with him? Duck was sweating. He rubbed awkwardly at the back of his head, trying to avoid seeing himself flounder in the mothman’s eyes.

“Yeah, uh, I got a cat, Mr.-Mr. Man, so, uh, not for me, thanks. Thank you.”

“Ah. Well, fair enough, Ranger Duck.” Mothman gave an approximation of a cordial nod, puffing up his wings like a bird in preparation to take off again. Duck blinked, caught off guard, and replayed the last couple seconds to his sleep-deprived brain. Oh.  _ Duck, you idiot.  _ He backpedaled, actually reaching an arm half-out to stop mothman from leaving and  _ how _ the hell had the night come to this so quickly.

“No, wait, no I meant the literal eating, specifically, is  _ not _ my thing, but you could uh, walk me back to the ranger station? If you have the time? Do you have a name, maybe?”

The mothman paused, half-ruffled, and in the blink of an eye a tall, spindly man stood in its place, with salt-and-pepper hair and reflective red glasses askew on his nose. The man held out a long arm, scarred in places, and tilted his head to give Duck a small smile.

“You’re a bit of a hot mess, aren’t you, Duck?”

\---

Duck stared. He’d been staring this whole time, really, but now that he had a concrete idea of where the face of his companion was, he couldn’t stop staring. The man was fascinating to look at, wiry and confident, standing with the air of someone whose center of gravity wasn’t where it should be. Duck reached out, experimentally, and took his hand.

He blushed.

“Something of a trainwreck, yeah. Not really geared up for, y’know,  _ encounters _ on the night shift.”

The mothman squeezed his hand, and then in one smooth motion swept down to retrieve Duck’s flashlight, pressing it into his other hand. 

“I don’t mind. Oh, and I’ve been rude--My name is Indrid Cold, commonly referred to as the mothman. Now, you have a ranger station to return to.”

“Not uh, well, not urgently.”

"Oh, excellent."

Without letting go of his hand, Indrid swooped to Duck’s side, pressing cool lips to his neck before stepping back to look him up and down, smirking with something like pride.

Duck, fighting down nerves and exhaustion and  _ fuck that’s mothman _ , stepped in, clipping the flashlight back to his belt, grabbed Indrid’s other hand and returned the favor.

\---

Duck stumbled back into the station late that morning, exhausted and ramshackle and in the best mood he could remember being in for years. Juno was already there, with coffee and looking at him with concern.

“What all happened to you out there, Duck? Look like you rolled halfway down Mount Kepler.”

Duck folded into a plastic chair, tugging up his collar to hide anything incriminating on his neck as he gratefully accepted a mug of coffee.

“Made out with the mothman,” he offered, nonchalant, hoping it’d play off as a joke in the absence of a lie. Juno barked a laugh, froze, and then turned to stare at him with a new intensity. Duck winced. 

“Hey, Duck? You’re not fuckin’ lying.”

**Author's Note:**

> finally writing stuff for Amnesty! decided to start w/ these excellent boys


End file.
